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NCAA basketball
College basketball refers to a basketball competitive governance structure established by various collegiate athletic governing bodies including the United States' National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), the United States Collegiate Athletic Association (USCAA), the National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA), the National Christian College Athletic Association (NCCAA) and others. Basketball in the NCAA is divided into three divisions: Division I, Division II, and Division III. In the NAIA and NCCAA there are two divisions, while the NJCAA has three. The history of college basketball can be traced back to a YMCA International Training School, known today as Springfield College, located in Springfield, Massachusetts. The creation of basketball can be credited to a physical education teacher named James Naismith. During the winter of 1891, Naismith was given two weeks to come up with a game that would keep track athletes in shape and that could still prevent them from getting hurt. The first recorded basketball game was played on December 21, 1891 and thus college basketball had been born. History The original rules for basketball were very different from today's modern rules of the sport. In the beginning there were 13 original rules: #The ball may be thrown in any direction with one or both hands. #The ball may be batted in any direction with one or both hands, but never with the fist. #A player cannot run with the ball. The player must throw it from the spot on which he catches it, allowance to be made for a man running at good speed. #The ball must be held by the hands. The arms or body must not be used for holding it. #No shouldering, holding, pushing, striking, or tripping in any way of an opponent. The first infringement of this rule by any person shall count as a foul; the second shall disqualify him until the next goal is made or, if there was evident intent to injure the person, for the whole of the game. No substitution shall be allowed. #A foul is striking at the ball with the fist, violations of Rules 3 and 4 and such as described in Rule 5. #If either side makes three consecutive fouls it shall count as a goal for the opponents (consecutive means without the opponents in the meantime making a foul). #A goal shall be made when the ball is thrown or batted from the grounds into the basket and stays there, providing those defending the goal do no touch or disturb the goal. If the ball rests on the edges, and the opponent moves the basket, it shall count as a goal. #When the ball goes out of bounds, it shall be thrown into the field and played by the first person touching it. In case of dispute the umpire shall throw it straight into the field. The thrower-in is allowed five seconds. If he holds it longer, it shall go to the opponent. If any side persists in delaying the game, the umpire shall call a foul on them. #The umpire shall be the judge of the men and shall note the fouls and notify the referee when three consecutive fouls have been made. He shall have power to disqualify men according to Rule 5. #The referee shall be judge of the ball and shall decide when the ball is in play, in bounds, to which side it belongs, and shall keep the time. He shall decide when a goal has been made and keep account of the goals, with any other duties that are usually performed by a referee. #The time shall be two fifteen-minute halves, with five minutes rest between. #The side making the most goals in that time shall be declared the winner. After the first game people were impressed by the amount of fun the game was. Many students that went home from school took the game of basketball with them and the game became an instant success. By 1900, many colleges had basketball teams that were playing each other, including the University of Kansas Jayhawks that was being coached by Naismith himself. The first doubleheader was played in New York City, at Madison Square Garden in 1934. The two games were between New York University and Notre Dame and Westminster and St John's. New York University won 25–18 and Westminster won 37–33. This symbolized the growth of basketball and how it had expanded and gained popularity all across the United States. Postseason tournaments The first national championship tournament was the 1922 National Intercollegiate Basketball Tournament. The first organization to tout a regularly occurring national championship was the NAIA in 1937, although it was quickly surpassed in notoriety by the NIT, or National Invitation Tournament, which brought six teams to New York's Madison Square Garden in the spring of 1938. Next year another tournament was implemented by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). Its locations varied from year to year, and it soon used multiple locations each year, so more fans could see games without traveling to New York. Although the NIT was created earlier and was more prestigious than the NCAA for a couple decades, it lost popularity and status to the NCAA Tournament. In 1950, following a double win by the 1949–50 CCNY Beavers men's basketball team (when the NIT comprised 12 and the NCAA 8 teams), the NCAA ruled that no team could compete in both tournaments, and effectively indicated that a team eligible for the NCAA tournament should play in it.[2] Not long afterward, assisted by the 1951 scandals based in New York City, the NCAA tournament had become clearly premier, with conference champions and the majority of top-ranked teams competing there.[3] Through the 1960s and 1970s, with UCLA leading the way as winner of ten NCAA Tournament championships, a shift in power to teams from the west amplified the shift of attention away from the New York City-based NIT. When the NCAA tournament expanded its field of teams from 25 to 32 in 1975, to 48 in 1980, to 64 in 1985, and to 68 teams in 2011, interest in the NCAA tournament increased again and again, as it comprised more and more teams, soon including all of the strongest ones. (Expansion also improved the distribution of playing locations, which number roughly one-third the number of teams in the field.) In 2011, the NCAA field expanded to 68 teams and the last 8 teams playing for four spots making the field into 64, which is called the first round and so on. The former first round is called the second round, the second round is called the third round, and the Sweet Sixteen is the same, but it is technically the fourth round in the current format, etc.